Part A

This post isn’t about getting fanfic professionally published. Nor is it an attempt to disagree (or not) with authors such as George R. R. Martin who stand directly against fanfiction for various reasons. This isn’t about encouraging writers to plagiarise or teaching them how to file off the serial numbers on fanfic to publish it as original work[i].
It is about how the techniques required by fanfic can help writers develop their skills and become more thoughtful about their processes.

Fanfiction[ii] gets a lot of stick. Despite its lengthy history, for a long time fanfic was tucked away and never spoken of in polite company. While it’s never really been secret, over the past few years, it has been brought a little further into the light. Certain books[iii] have achieved success off the back of their fanfic beginnings. Publishers have been actively seeking out popular fanfic works to greater or lesser success.

But just because it has had light shone upon it, doesn’t mean people regard it any more highly than they used to[iv]. Talk to most people from outside the fanfic world and they tend to be a little bit:

“Real writers”, professional writers, create original worlds and characters from scratch. Their works are carefully and fully developed, and they consequently have a depth that’s impossible for a fanwork to achieve.

There’s no denying there are differences between “professional”, or original, writing and fanfic. They each have their own sets of standards and expectations – something that is acceptable for a fanfic would be frowned on in a traditionally published work; someone writing professionally is bound by a lot more rules and guidelines than someone writing fanfic; the author of an original work has to convince their audience to believe in and follow a brand new fictional world where the fanfic author has to reassure their audience that they can be trusted with already beloved characters and worlds and meet their expectations. They’re important differences…but that doesn’t mean fanfic isn’t real writing, or that it doesn’t involve useful skills and techniques that can be applied to professional (or other!) writing.

Critics would have it that pro writers are pro writers and fanficcers are fanficcers and never the twain shall meet. But there are plenty of traditionally published works that prove the twain have met and they get along quite well, thanks. There are off-shoot series based on popular films and TV shows such as Star Wars and Stargate that are not called fanfic because they are officially licensed[vi].

Books like Wide Sargasso Sea, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the Young Sherlock Holmes are described as derivative, or mash-ups, or parodies; “inspired by” or “set in the world of”… but are equally the kinds of books that could only be written by someone deeply familiar with the source material that inspired them.

Ignoring the legal and financial sides, what makes these books different to fanfic? Is it simply the fact that the original creators have authorised them? You don’t have to delve too deeply into ff.net or AO3 to find works that are equally just “variations on a theme” – stories that continue where canon left off or reset the entire story in a completely different world.

Like it or loathe it, the suggestion that such writing would involve neither skill nor creativity is patently incorrect.

A number of publishers and even authors employ ghostwriters or collaborators to continue a popular series. Tom Clancy’s splinter cell series, Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time and many others have all been taken up by other writers. Such endeavours require the same skills as fanfiction: the writers need to immerse themselves in the original canon, to learn worlds and characters and write in a way that matches and is true to the original creators’ style and tone[vii]. In these situations, popular media judges the writers for their skill and their ability to “get it”.

Does anyone ask these writers whether they will ever write “for real” as fanfic writers often are when they are found out?

Possibly they do, but is the scornful tone quite so loud? What constitutes “real” writing? Where’s the line?

There is a post going around on Tumblr, written by someone who reads scripts for a living, reassuring fanfic writers about their talents… It is a good post, and as someone who works with stories for a living, I agree with much of the sentiment: there are some incredible storytellers in the fanfic world, and often fic ­– unconstrained by the rules and expectations of a money-making business – bends genres and expectations in ways professionally published works don’t. (Or can’t?) Of course, some of these fanfic authors do actually write for a living, because writers of fanfic are just as varied as any other group of humans. They’re people. They come from all corners of life, and they’re all ages. They’re students and academics, scientists and librarians, business analysts and soldiers, artists and authors… So it shouldn’t be a surprise that so many of these writers know what they’re doing.

Writing lessons

Another recent online comment declared outright that “fanfic isn’t like professional writing”. This was in response to a post aggressively criticising the presence of certain phrases/tropes/writing styles in fic. Others went on to point out that such negative phrasing (rather than gentle guidance) tended to put people off writing at all[viii]. Fanfic, they pointed out, was more often about writing for fun and not everyone writes it with the intention or desire to learn how to write better.

Some fanfics are badly written and/or thinly-veiled self-insertion stories written by sparkle-eyed daydreamers.

…So what? There are quite a lot of original works that could be described the same way.

Some people write for the same kinds of reasons and enjoyment as they might otherwise watch a film or read a book. No one asks them to work at those pastimes until they have them mastered.

Does writing anything have to be a training exercise? No… but it can be.

In fact, if you do want to learn how to write better and develop your skills, fanfiction is a pretty good way to start.Not the only way, granted. And maybe not everyone’s preferred way. And I don’t particularly advise ficcing your favourite author’s work if you know they are against the practice. But if you’re looking for writing exercises to develop your skills, using a pre-created world as a source or template seems as valid as other known exercises such as writing a scene from a photograph or using a song as a prompt. By learning how to explore, examine and develop someone else’s canon, you can often work out how they have pieced things together; the elements and themes and considerations that go into making a fictional world. And from there you can figure out how to go about creating your own…

[i] Some publishers accept and even encourage reworking fanfic but despite recent publishing deals it is more often frowned upon. It cuts so close to plagiarism that it can be a risky proposition and just changing the names is not enough. I once received a submission that was quite clearly a reworking of a Harry Potter fanfic; there wasn’t a single name or setting that was the same as the original, but it was still obvious.

[ii] fanfiction = fic. As distinct from “fiction” = original or published fiction.

[iii] You know the ones. Fifty Shades of Grey. The Mortal Instruments. A number of well-known authors began their writing careers in fanfiction. Some hide this fact, some are open about it. It’s surprising how many popular novels secretly began this way.

[iv] Fanfiction gets a lot of flak from all corners of the reading populace. Part of this is fan shaming, part of it is because of its reputation for being the originator of slash fiction and for being focused on erotica – even though, by definition, fanfiction is just that: a reimagining of an existing fiction by fans. Erotica and slash are just one aspect.

[v] One of the things often counted against fanfiction is the fact that a lot of the writing is amateur and often poorly executed. And some writers get outraged that people are “playing in their sandpits” or “misrepresenting” the characters they created. For actors who have portrayed certain characters it can undoubtedly be somewhat disconcerting to see “themselves” written into blushingly graphic anatomical situations.

A funny thing happened while I was blundering around the interwebs late last year. I was rummaging around on Twitter, minding my own business, when I stumbled into a conversation about tentacle fiction. That wasn’t the funny thing, obviously. Conversations about tentacles are a dime a dozen online, (if you, ah, know where to look) and they can be Serious Business – but the non-linear result was this announcement: I am now a freelance editor for Etopia Press!

As such, I am now taking direct manuscript submissions for speculative fiction (including fantasy, science fiction and horror) as well as romance/erotica.

Please check out my new submissions page for details on what I’m looking for, and visit Etopia Pressto find out more about what they publish.

***

In the meantime, in the spirit of dusting off the blog and getting it back up and running, and after a few conversations I’ve had online, I thought it might be time to analyse the fearsome obstacle of Publisher Submissions Guidelines.

Every week, there’s a new list of top tips on how to submit your manuscript successfully. Originally, this too was going to be one of those posts; but the thing is, ask any publisher or editor what they look for in a manuscript submission and they’ll nearly all say this:

The ideal submissions follow the publisher guidelines

No matter what else they might come up with in terms of story and writing quality, this will feature in their answer.
And yet some people still think guidelines are mere suggestions and can be ignored. Or alternatively, that they’re tricks and barriers deliberately put up by publishers to keep people out.

Neither of these things are true; or at least, not in the snarky and negative way that some people suggest. So, let’s break down what submission guidelines usually include and why the publisher might want you to adhere to them (and why it’s in your interests to do so, too).

Most publishers include the following within their submissions guidelines:

1. Description of the genres they do and don’t accept.

Not all publishers produce all things. If you’ve written a children’s book, you want to look for a children’s book publisher, or a publisher with a children’s imprint. What you do not want to do is send it to, say, a romance publisher who specifically states in their guidelines that they don’t publish children’s books*. And think about it, why would you want to? If they don’t publish your genre, then they don’t market to your audience; their editors probably don’t work regularly on those kinds of manuscripts.

Wouldn’t you rather work with a publisher as passionate and knowledgeable about your topic as you are? Who knows how to reach the people you’re talking to? Note: you might find someone at the first publisher does look at your misplaced manuscript, and maybe they’ll love your book. But that doesn’t change the fact they don’t publish that genre. So you’ll get a nice email from that editor telling you it’s a lovely book they can’t publish and wishing you well. That’s a best case scenario and where did it get you? Nowhere.

2.What to include in your submission (eg: cover letter, synopsis, manuscript/sample) – this will often include guidance on how long each element should be.

This is fairly obvious: the cover letter tells the editor/publisher who you are and a bit about your background, as well as what your manuscript is about; the synopsis summarises the entire manuscript down to a few pages, and the manuscript is… well… the manuscript.

The submission should include your contact information. It is extremely rare for a publisher to use this information to inform on you to ASIO/MI5/the CIA. As a general rule they like to use your contact information to contact you – maybe with a rejection, but hopefully with a contract offer.

Every element in your submission is important and has been requested for a reason. When you’re compiling your submission and thinking you could probably leave some bits out (or add in some extras) it’s worth thinking about how an editor might approach the actual reading of the contents of your submission. It’s possible they will read the parts in order, and how well each section is presented will help them decide whether to keep reading or cull your submission from the pile altogether.

If the cover letter is completely garbled, they may be hesitant about reading the synopsis. If they can’t make sense of that, they may not even look at the manuscript.

On the other hand, the synopsis might grab their attention within a page and convince them you’ve written a story they just have to read right now – something they wouldn’t have otherwise learned until they’d spent far longer reading the whole manuscript.

Other editors do it the other way around. They don’t want to know anything upfront and will dive into the manuscript first. But if they like that, then they want to know about the author… and it’s always nice to know whether the author’s view of the story as written in the synopsis is the same as the one in the full manuscript. Or maybe the editor will get halfway through the manuscript and waver on whether to keep going… the synopsis might ensure they do.

3.Where and when to send your submission

There are few publishers these days who hire staff for the sole purpose of reading through “the slush pile”. For the most part, reading submissions is a task editors and publishers do on top of their full-time work. Maybe it’s scheduled into their work week, but more likely they’re taking manuscripts home to read after work and on weekends. And they get hundreds of submissions each week.

It’s very easy for this to get out of control. And authors, understandably, do not like to be kept waiting for a response.

So publishers try to make this process simple and organised. They will provide details on precisely where you should send your submission. That means it will go to a monitored post box or email account and someone in charge of submissions will actually look after it. Of course, you can be wily and send it to someone specific if you think you’ll have a better shot. That might work. But you also run the risk in that case that your submission gets lost in that person’s overflowing inbox, or automatically deleted because you failed rule one of submissions: you didn’t follow the guidelines.

Some publishers are also specific about when you can send submissions. This might be on certain days, between set hours, or during certain times of the year. This is not the equivalent of the rock star’s rider.** Rather, this is a cunning administration technique to allow them to control the inflow of submissions. It means they know when to expect that week’s subs and they can monitor and distribute/read accordingly.

4. Formatting instructions

This is one people really think is a waste in the digital age – because who cares if you used the wrong font? Surely the in-house person can just “select all” and change to the preferred font or delete any unnecessary footers?

This is true.

They could.

Of course, they might have to do that on every one of hundreds of submissions.

One of the things an editor has to consider when reading a submission is how much editing a manuscript will require to make it ready for publishing – as in, ready to go on the shelves. Publishers have to think about the time and expense involved in working on any manuscript before they accept it. Part of that consideration includes gauging whether or not an author is likely to take guidance and edits happily. If you wilfully ignore the formatting guidelines on a publisher’s submission page, or worse, send in something you have pre-formatted for print (complete with cover, pictures and full layout) you may well lead the editor to assume you are someone who can’t take instruction and who is not willing to be edited.

There are also other reasons for specific formatting, depending on how the individual publisher’s submission filing system works. If you don’t supply the right information in the right way, you are relying on whoever does look after the submissions files to notice and either correct it or contact you for the right information. As mentioned, they’re probably dealing with several hundred submissions. What are the chances they have the time or inclination to do this?

The thing to keep in mind with all submission guidelines is they are there to make the process as clear, straightforward and fair as possible for everyone – on both sides of the equation. Next time you catch yourself thinking it doesn’t matter if you haven’t followed that particular guideline, ask yourself – what makes you so special?

Because, yes; your manuscript might well be The One. Maybe you are going to set the world on fire.***But… if your manuscript is in the submissions pile, no one has actually had a chance to read it yet to know that it’s so special. And if you don’t follow the guidelines, maybe they won’t ever get around to it. Because there are hundreds of other manuscripts in the same pile and all their writers think they’re special, too…

Publishers want great manuscripts. Help them find yours.

*And yes, this happens all the time. Also the other way around, I suspect. Blanket bombing the entire publishing industry with your manuscript is not a good approach.

NB: There is often confusion specific to children’s titles because some publishers accept YA (young adult) titles. Even allowing for the arguments over whether “young adult” means 12-18 or includes 20-25-year-olds; if your book is for toddlers or 7-9-year-olds, it’s not “young adult”. Failure to understand your own market is another red flag to the submissions reader…

**I’ve never met anyone in publishing who would allow anyone to remove free M&Ms from the room – not even for dubious colour-coding purposes.

***…And you’d better believe you’re going to set the world on fire, because you need conviction to survive this tough publishing business.